On New Year’s Day, I wrote a post entitled “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”  In it, I encouraged readers to read the bible this year, all the way through.  I have taken my own advice.  We all know how the bible begins – the “beginning” as I describe it to my second grade Sunday school class.  In the beginning, God created the world in which we live.  He created everything, the heavens and the earth.  He made the sun to light the day and the moon to light the night.  He made all living things, vegetation, plants and trees, sea creatures, birds, and every living thing that moves upon the earth.  Then, God made man.  He charged man to multiply and fill the earth, and gave him dominion over all of His creation.  Within the first few chapters of the bible, man is disobedient to God and becomes separated from Him.  By the time we get to chapter six, the whole earth is corrupt in God’s sight.  God saw that the wickedness of man was great, and that every intention of his heart was only evil continually.  God regretted having made man, and it grieved Him.  Already, God decided that He was going to destroy the earth, man, animals and creeping things, and birds, for He was sorry that He made them.  Noah was the only righteous man – he was blameless and walked with God.  So, God preserved Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives.  In short, but for Noah and his household, the earth was destroyed because of the wickedness of man.  Every time I read these passages, I think about the wickedness of man, then and now.  Who among us is blameless?  Who among us walks with God?  How great is the wickedness of man today?  How long will God tarry before He again regrets having made us?